Int. J. Middle East Stud. 39 (2007), 77102.

Printed in the United States of America

DOI: 10.1017.S0020743806391052
M. Sait

Ozervarl
ALTERNATIVE APPROACHES TO
MODERNIZATION IN THE LATE OTTOMAN
PERIOD:

I ZM

I RL

I

I SMA

I L HAKKIS RELIGIOUS
THOUGHT AGAINST MATERIALIST SCIENTISM
The aim of this article is to explore the distinctiveness of

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk (1869
1946) in the context of late Ottoman intellectual history and to suggest several impli-
cations of his thought on our understanding of debates on religion and modernization
among Ottomans in the modern period. Studies on modern Islamic thought in the 19th
and 20th centuries are mostly limited, especially in Western literature, to works dealing
with a few well-known figures in the Arab world, such as Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and
Muhammad Abduh. However, a close investigation into several mostly neglected or yet
uncovered thinkers of the Ottoman capital, Istanbul, can provide us with more interesting
aspects of this period. The earlier interest of Istanbul ulama in modernization, their closer
and more direct contact with Europeans, and the long historical experience of central
Ottoman intelligentsia in similar reviving attempts are some of these aspects. This article
aims to demonstrate that central Ottoman studies can make significant contributions to
the current knowledge of the period, not only in political history, as has been the main
focus so far, but also in religious and intellectual thought. It will show how a contact was
established between modern European and Ottoman religious thought, in which ways
the issue of modernization became an important topic in religious circles, and what kind
of perceptions took place among them about its content and limits.

Ismail Hakk is one of the prominent late-Ottoman personalities who took part in
lively debates in Istanbul and discussed some of the hot topics and questions of his time.
He was not the first Ottoman scholar to reexamine traditional Islamic thought in light
of the challenges of modernization. However, he was one of the most comprehensive
contributors to this effort. He and other moderate religious thinkers emerged as an
alternative voice to the defenders of mere positivism in the process of the modernization
of Ottoman thought, rejecting the notion of conflict both between Islamic tradition
and modernization and between true religion and pure science. However, his most
important contribution was attempting to reconstruct Islamic philosophical theology and
to produce a new kal am book that would bring together the traditional historical heritage
of this discipline and the developments of modern thought. Therefore, examining his
M. Sait

Ozervarl is Associate Professor at the Center for Islamic Studies, Ba glarbas caddesi, 40, 34662
Uskudar, Istanbul, Turkey; e-mail: ozervarli@yahoo.com.
2007 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/07 $12.00
78 M. Sait

Ozervarl
writings and comparing his views to his contemporaries will help to explore more
deeply a group of lesser known Ottoman intellectuals who suggested that Islam and
modernization were compatible.
The reason for addressing modernization in this study, and not modernity, is that
modern here refers to a process of renewal or change, and it is not strictly connected
to the philosophical context of modernity in the West. The modernization process
had its origins in earlier centuries of Islamic and Ottoman intellectual history, but it
accelerated in the 19th century.
1
All of the major world religions, including Judaism and
Christianity, faced various challenges in this period while presenting their traditions to
new generations. The Muslim world also underwent significant changes, with major
educational reforms and the establishment of modern schools. One impact that modern
education, the growing interest in modern science and thought, and cultural interactions
had on the Ottoman intellectual milieu is that it helped the production of a group of
radical modernists, who argued that faith and reason, religious beliefs and modern
life, were incompatible. The alternative approach of

Ismail Hakk, however, suggested
that within the Ottoman context, Islamic religious tradition could be understood and
explained in modern terms. The importance of highlighting Hakk lies in his being a
scholar of Ottoman religious thought who at the same time had a close interest in modern
developments and attempted to accomplish his modern project through a traditional
discipline, kal am.
In historical studies of modernization and cultural change, following Weberian anal-
yses, societies or thinkers are easily classified into modern/traditional or progres-
sive/backward dichotomies. As Zaman points out, this is because until recently scholars
have tended to see a sharp contrast between tradition and modernity. Increasingly,
however, such binary constructions have given way to the recognition that tradition
is not necessarily a way of opposing societal transformation but can equally facilitate
change.
2
The categories and dichotomies are asked to be disaggregated to reveal the
complexity, commonalities, and dynamic contradictions in changing societies and their
intellectuals.
3
Modern, with all its openness and fluidity, has its own elements of tradition,
and likewise tradition has its own flexibility. The very structure of both tradition and
modernization is such that they cannot simply be reduced to a pair of opposites as each
includes something from the other.
4
This is because mechanisms of persistence are not
utterly distinct from mechanisms of change. There is persistence in change to continue
having required reforms, and there is change in persistence because the past needs to
be recreated to be present and continuous.
5
Therefore, the very idea of modernization
includes its own tradition and becomes a culture.
6
Rashid Rida, the Lebanese/Egyptian thinker, connects this integration of tradition and
modernity to the natural and human life: Among the created, he says,
new and old are relative. Every old creature was once new, and every new one will become old. As
a folk proverb says: Whoever does not have a past, will not have a future . . . Renewal and renewing
of the universe are among the divine general laws, generating order in our world and change and
transformation in the phase of our existence. They operate [today] as they operated for our parents
and grandparents. . . . Social, political, civic and religious renewal is necessary for human societies
in accordance with their nature and level of readiness. They enable societies to progress through
the stages of civilization and ascend on the path of science and knowledge. . . . The renewal of
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 79
religion means renewing its guidance, clarifying its truth and certitude, refuting innovations and
extremism [by radical modernists].
7
This complex relation between religious/cultural tradition and modernization makes
the study of late Ottoman Islamic intellectuals more interesting by comparing their
approach to the all-inclusive Western approach. In fact, the overall neglect regarding the
contribution of religious scholars to the question of modernization is mostly caused by
the hitherto exclusive focus only on the radical secularist perception of modernization
and the failure to see its dynamic interaction with the existing cultural factors of society.
Ottoman society, by bringing together cultural elements from the East and the West, and
by experiencing together the pursuit of both change and preservation, is a good example
to illustrate the existence and availability of multiple ways and faces of modernization
processes. The case of

Ismail Hakk provides special insights into different perceptions
of modernization in the late Ottoman period as he was a figure who lived at a time
when the variety of approaches to modernization touched broad segments of Ottoman
society: he served not just as a witness to this process, but also as one of its agents.
Focusing on Hakk also helps to draw a more nuanced understanding of the relationship
between the old and the new for a better comprehension of late Ottoman history
in general. To place his thought in its larger Ottoman context, I will briefly introduce
the major intellectual trends that emerged during Hakks lifetime before discussing his
main projects in the following sections.
THE IM PACT OF M ODERNIZATION ON OTTOM ANS AND THE
EM ERGENCE OF RADICAL M ODERNIST AND RELIGIOUS
INTELLECTUALS
Late Ottoman society underwent significant modernization, a process that was both
caused and accelerated by the state reorganization program, tanzimat, beginning in
1839. The pressures for modernization grew out of the increasing number of travelers
to Western European countries, the establishment of new institutions and schools, and
the growing interest in modern science and thought, among other cultural factors. State
officials increasingly believed in the need to make urgent changes in the Ottoman
educational system and other administrative institutions. Historians continue to debate
whether these changes were basically imitative of European institutions or adapted to
Ottoman conditions.
8
In any case, the declaration of tanzimat and the willingness of officials to allow
changes opened the way for the foundation of new schools and major educational
reforms, including the establishment of new elementary, middle, and high schools,
especially during the long reign of Abd ulhamid II (18761909).
9
This period coincides
with the early career of

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk. Hakk received his primary education in
these new schools (mekteb), first in Izmir then in Istanbul, along with his traditional
madrasa learning. This twofold education presaged his attempts to reach an alternative
modernization, as discussed below. At the same time, the Ottoman state also engaged
in efforts to establish new higher educational institutions, beginning with the formation
of professional engineering, medical, and military schools in the late 18th and early
19th centuries.
10
This rapid educational movement culminated with a university,
80 M. Sait

Ozervarl
Dar ulf unun, in Istanbul, which opened in 1900 and where Hakk himself later served as
a professor.
11
Modern-educated Ottomans soon began to emphasize in their writings the impor-
tance of European sciences. Translations from European languages, mainly French, into
Turkish and Arabic accelerated during this period. Modern sciences had already gained
popularity among Ottomans when an encyclopedia of science was published for the
first time in Ottoman Turkish and became a pioneer in the modernization of scientific
terminology.
12
Later other scientific periodicals followed to promote modern science
among the Ottomans.
13
Science was seen by many officials and learned figures as the
only tool to solve the problems of the empire.
14
However, the unexpected development was the emergence of popular materialism
among a group of Ottomans. An elite group of Westernist intellectuals, such as Besir
Fuad, Abdullah Cevdet, and Baha Tevfik, adopted the 19th-century theories of German
Vulgarmaterialismus from mostly the post-Feuerbach period of works.
15
This group of
radical elites believed in the supremacy of science in all aspects of life and proposed
to take its foundations by adopting a completely European worldview, with both its
roses and thorns, because there was no future without it.
16
Nevertheless, to reach their
goals some of them did not hesitate to use Islamic language and terminology as they
realized that without an Islamic guise, scientism would never take root among the
masses.
17
They thought that if they had used Christian sources directly, Muslim minds
would not allow them to enter their sphere. Therefore, the materialists named their
leading journal

Ictihad, a central term of Islamic law, to emphasize their connection
to their Islamic roots.
18
Because their emphasis in Ottoman public space was mostly
on science, and because they tried to hide their materialistic worldview behind an
Islamic camouflage, I prefer to name their movement as materialist scientism instead
of scientific materialism, the more common description of their sources in Western
literature.
European sources of Ottoman materialism were mainly the French translations of
the works of German materialists Ludwig B uchner and Ernst Haeckel, along with
other French authors, such as Claude Bernard and Gustave Le Bon, known for their
antireligious views and opposition to metaphysical discussions.
19
B uchner and Haeckel
were a part of the 19th-century movement of naturalist and biological materialism in
Germany, which also affected other parts of Europe as the new scientific philosophy and
the ideology of future. The movement also included scientists, such as Carl Vogt and
Jacob Moleschott, and its ideas spread mostly through popular scientific journals.
20
The
preoccupation of radical modernist thinkers with mostly European materialist literature
was to the utter amazement of visiting foreign scholars.
21
Charles MacFarlane, a
British traveler, who had visited Istanbul earlier in 184748 and been to Galatasaray
Medical School (Mekteb-i Tbbiye), among other newly established schools, was one
of the observers of this influence.
22
Therefore, this connection of ideas shows that modernization of thought among the
Ottomans cannot be analyzed independently from developments in modern European
history. Werner Heisenberg in his Physics and Philosophy states that the nineteenth
century developed an extremely rigid frame for natural science, which created an open
hostility towards religion. The rigid framework, he points out, is beginning to dis-
solve in the 20th century as a result of the relativity theory and quantum mechanics.
23
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 81
The openness of modern physics, Heisenberg suggests, may help to some extent to
reconcile older traditions with new trends of thought.
24
Heisenbergs foresight was
already realized after the mid-20th century through the criticisms of rigid scientism
by post-Einsteinian rationalist scientists, such as Karl Popper, Thomas Khun, and Paul
Feyerabend. This article will present how an Ottoman scholar tried to do a similar
reconciliation from a philosophicaltheological point of view.
How do we explain the rapid diffusion of materialism into Ottoman educated circles,
apart from recognizing European influence and a general admiration of science among
Ottoman intellectuals? What was the main motivation behind the Ottoman attraction
to scientism in general and popular materialism in particular? Materialist thought was
particularly influential among intellectuals because of their elitist approach to save
society through a new design, by changing its cultural dimensions from above, and
reconstructing a new social entity in order for it to be a part of the new civilization
of Europe.
25
Therefore, the exclusive, imposing, and future-designing understanding of
materialistic (or positivistic) science was ideal for them. It also fitted the ambitions of
the revolutionary Young Turks, the rising political group of that period, who, unlike
the previous Young Ottoman movement, turned into a radical Westernist organization,
and began to distance itself from religious culture. In fact, there was a close relation
between Young Turks and the materialist elite, who were often politically affiliated with
the group. This explains why the Young Turk Weltanschauung, as it developed between
1889 and 1902, was vehemently antireligious, viewing religion as the greatest obstacle
to human progress.
26
Although the Young Turks regarded religious thought as the main
obstacle to what they deemed necessary philosophical and scientific progress, they were
not successful either in creating a nonreligious Ottoman philosophical school based on
Western thought.
27
However, the materialist elite was not the only group that focused on modern
European thought. Extreme materialistic views may have sparked opposition, espe-
cially among religious circles, but they also kindled a general curiosity toward modern
science and thought among readers. This growing interest in developments of European
science pushed intellectuals and bureaucrats of various tendencies to discuss the need for
modernization, although they disagreed with the materialists on its content and extent
as well as its measures and methods.
28
It is not surprising, therefore, that European
criticisms of materialist scientism, such as Henri Poincar es critical relativism, Emile
Boutrouxs scientific indeterminism, and Henri Bergsons creationist and progressive
evolutionism attracted the attention of certain Ottoman academicians, who translated
these authors into Turkish as a response to the transmission of popular materialism into
Ottoman language and culture.
29
Influenced by these further translations, the new generation of modern religious
scholars had a chance to contact other sources of European thought and felt more
confident to emphasize an alternative approach toward modernization. One should note
that religious scholars in the Sunni Ottoman context would not refer to an institutional
body of clerics but rather to a group of lay scholars who studied religious disciplines
either in madrasas or modern institutions. They replaced the old ulama, who combined
religious and scientific education in their traditional system. In fact, most scholars
who somehow had a religious background and were worried about the materialistic
aspect of modern thought became interested in issues of religion and modernization.
30
82 M. Sait

Ozervarl
Consequently, just as the radical intellectuals had done, they translated some books from
European thinkers, showing the rational and spiritual aspects of modern thought and the
criticism of popular materialism by them.
31
Therefore, they followed an alternative path
of modernization that combined traditional heritage with modern ideas and methods,
a path that had its roots in the earlier Young Ottoman movement in political thought
in the 1860s and 1870s. The Young Ottomans, although advocating the adoption of
industrialization and political reforms, rejected a cultural identification with the West.
32
Their theories were partly of Islamic origin with modern interpretations, and they
thought that modern institutions could not be adopted without basing them on deeper
foundations.
33
The failure of the first constitution and the strict state control on all
intellectualsincluding the ulamaduring the Hamidian era pushed religious scholars
to get more interested in modern discussions and to seek alliances with the radical
modernist thinkers, who were mostly affiliated with the Young Turks, then in opposition.
However, during the second constitutional period and the rule of the Young Turks
through the Committee of Union and Progress (

Ittihad ve Terakki Frkas), the difference

between the two understandings of modernization surfaced and dominated the debates.
34
Unlike the radical members of the Young Turks and the materialists, according to
the group that

Ismail Hakk belonged to, the true modernizer does not deny cultural
heritage and works positively both to appraise the past and to determine the requirements
of the future. To them, it is the duty of learned members of society to support the
required changes.
35
More interestingly, they saw no inherent value or identification for
modernization: one can embrace it and thereby avoid stagnation by reappropriating old
norms for newchallenges. It is not restricted to the Western context, as already existed in
the tradition of Islamic thought, although it was to a certain extent neglected in the latest
phase of the premodern period. Some recent studies, unlike early Orientalist theses, also
emphasize no direct connection between modernization and Westernization.
36
In keeping with this openness toward modernization of thought, the newgeneration of
religious intellectuals began to call for reform (slah) in the traditional madrasa school
system.
37
They also called for methodological changes within the traditional Islamic
disciplines of Qur

anic exegesis, Islamic law, and especially Muslim philosophical

theology, in which Hakk was most interested to meet the challenges of modern Western
thought. One should remember that the issue of renovation (tajd d/tecdid) and revival
(ihya

) in Islamic disciplines of learning is not exclusively modern but has deep historical
roots.
38
This familiarity offered precedents for 19th-century scholars of Islamic thought
as they sought to meet the challenges of materialism.
It should also be noted that, although individuals in this group shared a viewof Islamic
thought as one of the indispensable forces in modernizing Ottoman culture, they did
not represent a single voice; they debated the relationship of Islam to various modern
realities among themselves and indeed disagreed on many issues. Despite the difficulties
of making a classification among them, it is possible to divide them along three major
lines: (1) the relatively modernist group of scholars, who gathered around the influential
Srat-i M ustakim journal (190825), which was published the day after the declaration
of the second constitutional revolution, and later was renamed Sebil urresad (Mehmed
Akif [Ersoy], Elmall Hamdi [Yazr] and notably

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk belong to this
group); (2) the relatively conservative group of religious scholars who wrote mainly
in the Beyan ulhak journal (190812), which was edited by S eyh ulislam Mustafa Sabri
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 83
(18691954); and (3) scholars who combined Turkish-nationalist and modern religious
views and grouped as contributors of

Islam Mecmuas (191418) (disciples of the late,
leading Ottoman sociologist and ideologue Ziya G okalp, they included Halim Sabit,
Seyyid Bey, Mehmed S erafeddin [Yaltkaya], and Mansurizade Mehmed [Said]). All
these groups, although different in their priorities and emphases, were united in reviving
Islamic thought, rejecting materialistic theories, and considering the role of religious
culture.
39
Even though they differed on many levels, they had frequent interactions across
lines, and there were even authors who wrote in all journals published by the above
three subdivisions.

I ZM

I RL

I

I SM A

I L HAKKI AS A LATE OTTOM AN SCHOLAR

Born in 1869 in the city of

Izmir, after which he was named,

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk received

his first education in his birthplace, in traditional madrasas and modern mektebs. As
mentioned earlier, most of the learned men of Hakks generation were educated both at
new schools and through traditional training. Following his graduation from r usdiye and
some temporary teaching jobs in

Izmir, he moved to Istanbul for his higher education, just

at the time when Abdulhamid undertook his educational reformprogram. He attended the
Teacher Training School (Dar ulmuallimin-i

Aliye) and graduated from there in 1892.
Simultaneously, he received private instructions from madrasa scholars and obtained the
traditional diploma (icazetname) in Islamic studies. Among his teachers, two scholars
influenced him the most, Ahmed Asm Bey, of Dar ulmuallimin, and Hafz Ahmed S akir
Efendi, of Fatih Madrasa. Hakk described them as two perfect masters that I loved
very sincerely and benefited from most.
40
Istanbul then became the center of Hakks academic career for the rest of his life,
and he worked as a teacher and administrator in various schools in the Ottoman capital.
He was soon recognized for his superior performance and was elected a member of
numerous scholarly commissions and committees, including the Society of Islamic
Studies (Cemiyet-i Tedrisiye-i

Islamiye). After the constitutional revolution of 1908,

Ismail Hakk became one of the most popular Islamic scholars of that period and was
immersed in a busy academic life. He first was appointed as a professor in the theology
department of the newly established Western-style university in Istanbul (Dar ulf unun

Ilahiyat Fak ultesi).

41
Then, he was a member of two other important scholarly institu-
tions when there were increasing demands for radical reforms in education. The first
institute was founded to revise madrasa programs and set up modern madrasas in the
empire (Dar ulhilafeti

l-aliye, 191623), and the second was established for solving

current educational and religious questions and was led by the pro-constitutionalist
S eyh ulislam Musa Kazm (Dar ulhikmeti

l-

Islamiye, 191822). These two institutions

brought together some major figures among late-Ottoman scholars and represented the
chief intellectual bodies of the time.
42
Hakk was also a member of another group that worked on the reorganization of
Sufi orders (Cemiyet-i Sufiyye). Besides, he was involved in other official commissions
seeking to standardize technical and scholarly terms and to revitalize the study of kal am.
He received many honors for his scholarly activities. His close friend Mehmed Akif
introduced him to the modern Islamic circle that produced the journal Sebil urresad,
and he contributed numerous articles to this journal. Although Hakk did not have
84 M. Sait

Ozervarl
any political ambitions, he was, like many other late-Ottoman intellectuals of his time,
registered as a member of the Committee of Union and Progress, which was one of the
powerful players in Ottoman politics in the last period.

Ismail Hakks scholarly activities continued, although less intensively, during the
years of the Turkish republic. He first joined an editorial committee of scholarly publi-
cations appointed by the newly established government in Ankara (Tedkikat ve Te

lifat-i

Islamiyye Heyet-i

Ilmiyyesi). Shortly after the announcement of political and social
reforms by the Turkish government and the ban on traditional madrasa education in
1924, he returned to Istanbul as a professor at the reorganized and reopened Dar ulf unun.
When Dar ulf unun was turned into Istanbul University in 1933, the theology department
was closed, and he was moved to the Institute of Islamic Studies (

Islam Tedkikleri
Enstit us u), a research institution with no teaching program. Hakk retired from his job
in 1935 and spent the last decade of his life doing individual research until his death at
the age of 77 on 31 January 1946, during a visit to his son in Ankara.
43
Ismail Hakk
had a fine collection of books, many in manuscript, and before his death he gave them
to the S uleymaniye Library in Istanbul, where they are now kept in a part of the library
under his name. The section provides information about the main sources of his thought
and also contains the manuscripts of his unpublished works.
In a statement describing his principles as a scholar, Hakk claimed independence
from all schools and authorities of thought in Islamic society. Not wanting to be seen
as partisan, he said that he regarded no human, other than the Prophet, as faultless or
innocent, and sought only the truth, wherever it be found. In his words, I am not a
strong supporter of any scholar. I dont regard any scholars opinion as if it is from
divine revelation! Just as I am not a strong supporter of Ibn Taymiyya, I am not a strong
supporter of al-Ghazzali, either. I am neither a Hanbali, nor an Ash

ari. I would not

follow Sufis or mutakallim un blindly. I side only with the truth!
44
He was also careful,
he said, not to share any opinion without clear evidence of its correctness, and not to
accuse any group of heresy or apostasy. At the end of his declaration he mentioned that
among the classical Muslim thinkers, al-Ghazzalis works influenced him the most.
45
For this reason, it would be inaccurate to call Hakk a pure rationalist or neo-Mu

tazilite,
as some have characterized Muhammad Abduh and other modernist kal am reformers.
46
In fact, Hakk was attracted to Islamic mysticism(tas
.
awwuf) under the influence of his
teacher Ahmed AsmEfendi while reading ibn al-

Arabis Fusus al-hikamcommentaries

with him, and met with the Shadhili Sufi scholar Shaykh Husayn b. Muhammad Hasan
al-Baghdadi al-Azhari, who gave him a hilafetname, a certificate authorizing him to
spread the teachings of the Shadhiliyya order.
47
However, he displayed little interest in
mystical thought as an academic field in his works. The Shadhiliyya, although originally
a North African order named after its Tunisian founder, Abu al-Hasan

Ali al-Shadhili
(d. 1258), was known for its strict association with Sunni beliefs and focus on moral
principles.
48
Its combination of scholarship with spirituality and lesser formality might
have attracted Hakk. Moreover, Hakk exchanged long discussions with S eyh Saffet
(Yetkin) (18661950) on the authority of the hadith mentioned in popular Sufi books.
In the debate he insisted that most of the words attributed to the Prophet in Sufi books
were not authentic but rather the Sufis own words and, therefore, could not be consid-
ered religious sources. S eyh Saffet, a defender and follower of Sufism, was not happy
with Hakks remarks and accused him of ignoring the importance of Sufi literature in
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 85
religious culture.

Ismail Hakk, however, considered the content of this popular literature

as not relevant to his modernization project of Islamic thought. The debate led to the
publication of several articles and books.
49
Because of his intensive concentration on metaphysics and kal am, Hakk did not write
on ethics separately, apart from chapters on theological ethics related to the issues of
theodicy and the creation of evil.
50
However, he was very interested in modern Western
thought, especially in the great thinkers of metaphysical philosophy, like Descartes. In
one of his books he even compared major Western philosophers with Muslim thinkers.
51
In his magnum opus, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam (The New Discipline of Kal am), while giving
examples of the differences between ancient and modern philosophies in the West, he re-
ferred to most modern philosophers, including some of his 19th-century contemporaries,
such as John Stuart Mill, Ernst Renan, Henri Poincar e, and Emile Boutroux. His sources
seem, however, to have been mostly textbooks or encyclopedias, though his bibliography
included a few primary works of modern philosophy, like Rene Descartes Discourse de
la m ethode, Auguste Comtes Cours de la philosophie positive, and Gustave Le Bons
L evolution de la matiere. Among contemporary Muslim thinkers, he included Muham-
mad Abduhs Risalat al-tawhid and Jamal al-Din al-Qasimis Barahin al-tawhid.
52
In
another book, he also referred to the Egyptian scholar Muhammad Lutfi Jum

as Tarikh
falsafat al-Islam fi al-Mashriq wa-l-Maghrib (History of Islamic Philosophy in the East
and the West) and the Indian modernist Sayyid Ameer Alis The Spirit of Islam, which he
praises.
53
The references to these thinkers, along with others whom he did not mention
by name, show Hakks awareness not only of European currents of thought, but also of
the modernist movement in other parts of the Muslim world. The ideas and writings of
Muhammad Abduh and his teacher Jamal al-Din al-Afghani certainly had a great impact
on the scholarly group of Hakks circle in Istanbul, as many articles by Abduh and
al-Afghani were translated into Turkish in their journal Srat- M ustakim and later in
Sebil urresad.

I SM A

I L HAKKIS NEW KAL

AM AND HIS OPPOSITION TO
M ATERIALIST SCIENTISM
When Hakk started his career as a young teacher, the revitalization of kal amwas already
discussed in terms of religion and modernity in the late Ottoman Empire and in other parts
of the Muslim world. Some articles emphasized the urgent need to rewrite theological
books according to the needs of their age. Ottoman defenders of modernizing kal am,
such as Abd ullatif Harputi and S eyh ulislam Musa Kazim, argued that the use of modern
scientific and philosophical methodologies was necessary to strengthen faith in Islamand
to bring its disciplines up to date. Harputi, for instance, pointed out that kal am scholars
(mutakallim un) of the early Islamic period examined classical philosophy when they
believed it was necessary. Just as these early scholars had done, todays mutakallim un
should also examine philosophy through modern works and select what was needed from
them and thereby found a new ilm-i kelam. According to Harputi, kal am methodology
had not remained constant throughout Islamic history and was now poised to enter a
new stage of its history with the introduction of modern scientific methods.
54
Harputi
was especially interested in developments in modern astronomy, which was believed
to challenge the traditional religious idea of the universe, and he therefore wrote a
86 M. Sait

Ozervarl
separate treatise on the harmony of new astronomical data with the Qur

an and other
sacred texts.
55
Similarly, Musa Kazm, one of the last seyhulislams of the Ottoman era,
wrote an emphatic article on the need to reform kal am, in which he accused ulama of
blind rejection of Western ideas and of failing to meet the needs of the day.
56
At the
same time, in other parts of the Muslim world, Islamic scholars raised analogous points
for reform in religious thought and contemporary kal am using a similar methodology.
57
Why was kal am so central to the modern revitalization of Islamic disciplines? Before
answering this question, I will provide some detail about the historical evolution and
the perception of this discipline in the pre- and early Ottoman period. The discipline of
kal am, or

ilm al-kal am as it is called in Arabic, is a philosophically oriented theology
within the general structure of Islamic thought. Through its historical development it
differed from

aqda (catechism), which is simply presentation of the matters of belief,
and from us
.
ul al-dn (the principles of faith), which clarify and defend Islamic religious
doctrine, although some kal am books carry these terms in their titles.
58
In the post-Ghazzalian period, beginning with Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606/1209) in
the 12th century, Sunni kal am absorbed the syntheses of Islamic philosophy and most
of its metaphysical questions in a comprehensive way. Ibn Khaldun (d. 808/1406), the
well-known historian of Islamic civilization, emphasized that following al-Razi, works
of kal am could not be differentiated from philosophy books.
59
The mutakallim un of
this later period, who were called muta

akhkhir un (the subsequents, compared with the

mutaqaddim un, the precedents), dealt with wider issues of metaphysics and science,
introduced Aristotelian logic in their argumentation method, and began to quote Muslim
philosophers in their works. For this reason, kal am was called a discipline of general
principles (al-

ilm al-kulli) and was given the highest position (ashraf al-

ul um) in the
hierarchy of Islamic sciences.
60

Adud al-Din al-Iji (d. 1355) and his commentator al-
Sayyid al-Sharif al-Jurjani (d. 1413), who greatly influenced early Ottoman scholars,
described how kal am maintained its position as a general methodological base for
other Islamic disciplines. According to these two scholars, the mutakallim un, while
building the theory of Islamic beliefs, ought to systematize kal ams own epistemology
and ontology to keep it self-sufficient as the source and framework of other Islamic
disciplines.
61
Kal am, therefore, was able to broaden its field of study and absorb most of
the philosophical and metaphysical questions in its content from the 13th century on.
62
Early Ottoman scholars, such as Fenari (d. 1431), Hzr Bey (d. 1458), Hocazade
(d. 1488), Hayali (d. 1470?), Kesteli (d. 1495), and Kemalpasazade (d. 1534) continued
this approach and wrote commentaries on the works of Sunni philosophical kal am
of muta

akhkhir un rather than mutaqaddim un. Therefore, kal am maintained its high
position in the Ottoman madrasas in the 15th and the 16th centuries.
63
Although some
Ottoman scholars opposed the study of kal am because of its philosophical content,
64
it continued to be one of the major disciplines of Ottoman scholarship up through
the works of Beyazizade Ahmed (d. 1687), Abd ulkadir Arif (d. 1713), Yanyal Esad
(d. 1730), Akkirmani Mehmed (d. 1760), and Gelenbevi

Ismail (d. 1791).
However, in the 19th century, according to Hakk, traditional kal am teaching lost
its richness and dynamism because the texts of the field were less sophisticated books
that did not meet the new conditions of modernization and the challenges of scientific
materialism.
65
However, Hakks generation was fully aware of the traditional importance
of this field in Islamic intellectual history, its close relationship with philosophy, and its
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 87
flexibility in borrowing new methodologies and absorbing new ideas. Therefore, they
rediscovered kal am as the most convenient discipline for their attempts to revitalize
Islamic religious thought so that it might meet the challenges of modern philosophy and
science.
In a series of articles in the journal Sebil urresad, and in his major book Yeni

Ilm-i
Kelam,
66
Hakk joined the modernization efforts of his contemporaries and focused on
the importance of rational thinking in general and the contribution of kal am to Islamic
thought in particular. As evidence of the necessity for change in both the method and
content of kal am,

Ismail Hakk lists examples of similar changes in the history of
kal am. In the 12th century, Fakhr al-Din Razis kal am, for example, replaced Baqillanis
kal am because of the inadequacy of Baqillanis system vis-` a-vis the new philosophical
methodology of kal am in Razis age. Therefore, Razis kal am was also to be replaced
with a new formulation when it no longer met the needs of the age. Because Aristotelian
philosophy, on which Razi depended, had collapsed in recent centuries, and a new,
modern philosophy had emerged, Hakk argues, Razis kal am was no longer adequate.
Therefore, the scholars of new kal am, he says, should examine modern philosophy and
select newideas, arguments, and methods fromvarious thinkers, provided that they fit the
system of kal am thought, while rejecting the materialistic ideas that were inappropriate
to Islam.
67
Moreover, scholars of new kal am, he suggests, should also stop using outdated
scholastic methods that were no longer understood by the new generation; instead, they
should use the logic and method of modern thinkers such as Descartes.
68
Underlying
this approach was Hakks belief that the methods and presuppositions of kal am were
changeable fromage to age, although its essentials and principles remained the same.
69
In
fact, Hakks methodology led him to prefer rational interpretations in some theological
issues. For instance, although he accepts the existence of miracles, he does not give great
weight to these supernatural factors in his evaluation of Muhammads prophethood. For
evidence of the truth of the Prophets mission, he takes, rather, a rationalist approach,
referring to the civilizing effects of Islam on tribal Arab communities and later Muslim
societies.
70
Likewise, he wrote an essay questioning eternal punishment in the hereafter,
using both rationalist and religious evidence.
71
He reminds his colleagues that if method-
ological changes did not take place, people with modern educations would not find the
Islamic message satisfying.
72
Aware of the integration of traditional muta

akhkhir un kal am with Muslim syntheses

of ancient and medieval philosophy, Hakk does not hesitate to reconcile his new kal am
with modern philosophy (felsefe-i cedide). Instead of the views of ancient philosophers,
such as Thales, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Democritus, Socrates, Aristotle, Epicures,
Zenon, Pyron, Plotinus, and Porphyry, which were discussed in traditional kal am, he
suggests that the scholar of new kal am needs to examine and select, when useful, the
ideas of modern Western thinkers, such as Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke,
Malebranche, Hume, Condillac, Kant, Hegel, Auguste Comte, Hamilton, Stuart Mill,
Spencer, Paul Janet, and Bergson. Similarly, instead of focusing on ancient schools such
as Peripatetics and Stoicism, much more attention should be paid to modern schools
of thought, such as rationalism, neomaterialism, positivism, spiritualism, and others.
73
In this way, kal am would conform to contemporary philosophical subjects and develop
according to contemporary needs.
74
Because of his keen interest in philosophy, Hakk,
88 M. Sait

Ozervarl
unlike the conservative ulama of his time, also praises the Muslimphilosophers al-Farabi
(d. 950) and Avicenna (d. 1037) for their great contributions to ancient philosophy, their
synthesis of Aristotelian and neo-Platonist philosophy, and their innovations in philo-
sophical methodology and thought. In one of his last works, he criticizes Peyami Safa,
a contemporary Turkish writer, for undermining the Muslim contribution to philosophy
by attributing the whole history of philosophy to Aristotle and presenting philosophy as
a Greek miracle.
75
However, the main purpose of Hakks writing a new kal am book was to respond to
the challenges of modern materialist thought. In fact, some earlier Ottoman religious
thinkers, such as

Ismail Ferid, Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi, and Harputizade Hac Mustafa,
had already written refutations against the materialists, who were called maddiyun.
76

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, however, put his criticisms in a larger theological context as in
his effort to reconstruct a modern kal am theory in accordance with the requirements
and developments of the new age. In his Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, he gives a brief history of
materialists from ancient pre-Socratic thinkers to the late modern, saying that in the
modern times materialism reemerged partly with the ideas of Hobbes in England and of
Gassendi in France by the 17th century. Some of the French Encyclopedists of the 18th
century, such as Baron dHolbach, La Mettrie, and Helvetius, he points out, strengthened
materialistic views; however, the real spread of materialism occurred in the mid-19th
century, as scholars of medicine and biology mostly converted to the materialist school.
In Germany, Feuerbach prepared the foundations of the school, while later Moleschott,
B uchner, and Vogt represented the neomaterialist movement.
77
The neomaterialists, Hakk explains, regarded the knowledge about God as the
enemy of knowledge, whereas they sawno beginning for matter and motion.
78
However,
in Hakks view, although materialists presented their ideas in a scientific context,
they actually did not have respect for true scientific research and did not follow a
scientific methodology in their conclusions. He is surprised how some people could
accept their nonsense views (safsata), which are, to him, against physical experiments
and observations. Hakk criticizes materialists for holding onto a mechanistic approach to
natural laws despite recent, contrary developments in physical and astronomical sciences.
Materialists, he says, base their principles of nature on a strict determinism instead of
teleological voluntarism while explaining human psychological realities through mental
functions of the body, thereby totally denying all spiritual dimensions of life.
79
Highlighting the main points of his criticismof the materialists, Hakk emphasizes that
matter (madde), which is the main and only source of existence in scientific materialism,
loses its place and importance in modern physics in favor of energy; therefore, it would
not be appropriate to regard matter as an eternal and indisputable source of existence.
Matter, in fact, cannot move on its own without an external force or mover, so it
always needs a cause to function. The great philosophers like Spinoza, Hegel, and
Schopenhauer, unlike the materialists, base their systematic thought on nonmaterial
metaphysical concepts, such as substance, thought, or will. Even empiricist philosophers,
like Berkeley and Hume, he argues, did not uphold a purely materialistic worldview.
Morever, Hakk states that the neomaterialists see their views on science as unchange-
able because scientific theories were not bound to change over the course of time. Refer-
ring to certain unnamed English philosophers, he suggests, Todays truths could always
be tomorrows total ignorance.
80
Nevertheless, Hakk argues, the so-called deterministic
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 89
theories of materialism have already been challenged by the new discoveries of French
scientists Henri Poincar e and Emil Boutroux, who suggested rather an indeterministic
state in the laws of nature. The other major mistake of the materialists, according to
Hakk, was their underestimation of higher concepts of philosophy, including reason-
ing, consciousness, and so on. This simplistic approach, which has nothing to do with
science, he concludes, cannot establish the foundations of a systematic thought.
81
There-
fore, especially following recent attacks by August Comte and the positivists on their
views, he claims, Today materialists are not valued in Europe any more. Materialism
is disappearing day by day. In the contemporary age, the evolution of thought enters a
way that gives the spiritual realities quite a large space.
82

Ismail Hakk seems to be aware of both the decline of popular materialism during the
first quarter of the 20th century and some of the criticisms against it by contemporary
European thinkers. Instead of making religious comments against materialist ideas, he
tries to reviewand criticize themfroma philosophical point of view.
83
In fact, when Hakk
enters into theological debates, he generally uses weak arguments. For instance, in his
challenge to the materialist view about the impossibility of observing divine existence,
Hakk counters with the same impossibility of observing subatomic particles.
84
However,
he does seem quite consistent, in general, in disputing the views of materialists from a
philosophical point of view and in highlighting some of their incoherences.
Despite promoting the use of philosophical discussions,

Ismail Hakk did not find it
appropriate to include the pure natural sciences (tabi

iyat) and astronomy (felekiyat) in

his proposed new kal am. According to Hakk, an intensive use of scientific theories and
terminology would require such frequent renovation of kal am texts that it risked sur-
passing its philosophical content. Moreover, science in the Middle Ages was contained
within philosophy; therefore, when earlier mutakallim un imported and synthesized
philosophical questions in their texts, they inevitably had to deal with scientific questions
of their time. However, because science had gained its independence from philosophy
and developed through experimental methods in modern times, kal am should not delve
into scientific questions. It might only indirectly refer to some recent conclusions of
science about particular questions when needed.
85
Accordingly, in Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam he
touched upon some aspects of atomic physics, evolutionary biology, and recent theories
of science among other subjects.
86
I should note that the aim of this article is not to
present the entirety of Hakks views and criticisms, but only to give some examples of
howhe constructed his modern religious thought and howhe dealt with the challenges of
materialist scientism that gained popularity among many Ottoman intellectuals during
his lifetime. Therefore, other issues need to be addressed in his writings.
Another important matter that occupied Hakk, albeit to a lesser extent, was Comtean
positivism (isbatiye), which was the other influential movement among radical Ottoman
thinkers, such as Ahmed Rza. The positivists did not consider any source of knowledge
other than physical senses, Hakk explains, and therefore denied the ability of human
rational faculty to discover any absolute or transcendental notion. Contrary to the posi-
tivists, he questions the unique role of senses, emphasizing that human knowledge could
not be limited to the sensible world. He also disagrees with the rejection of unknown
realities as well as the underestimation of the capacity of reasoning, arguing that ignor-
ing questions related to the beginning and the end of existence would be a total loss
for human knowledge. Although he emphasizes the existence of methods of believing
90 M. Sait

Ozervarl
in, or reaching, ideas through inner conscience (vicdan) or other spiritual perceptions
without rational argumentation, he does not see them as causes for the exclusion of
reason in epistemology. Hakk, in fact, finds Comtes division of the history of science
into three periods quite amazing (mahirane), but he does not agree with him about the
closeness of the age of religion and metaphysics. He argues that August Comte, who
was the founding father of positivism, ironically turned to establish a new religion of
humanity.
87
It should be remembered that social and biological theories of 19th-century European
materialism and positivism had a broad impact on many Ottoman thinkers through
numerous translations. What is peculiar about Hakk is that he suggested that it was
the task of new kal am to deal with the views of these schools and respond to them in
a systematic philosophical way. He regarded kal am as the most appropriate traditional
source to combine religious and philosophical thoughts and to apply modern methods
to present its principles in accordance with contemporary conceptions. Kal am also
provided him an opportunity to discuss and reject materialist and positivist movements,
which he considered as destructive challenges to Ottoman religious culture.
CRITICISM OF

I SM A

I L HAKKIS NEW KAL

AM BY OTHER
OTTOM AN SCHOLARS

Ismail Hakks attempt to rewrite kal am attracted criticism from Ottoman scholars who
objected to the use of modern philosophy in Islamic discourse. The influential journal
of the day, Sebil urresad, ran an interview with Hakk exploring his project of Yeni

Ilm-i
Kelam.
88
The interview should have generally received positive responses because the
project was relevant to the modern attitude of contemporary intellectuals, and it also kept
clear links with historical tradition, as will be discussed below. However, the interview
drew strong criticism from H useyin Kazm Kadri (18701934), a scholarly minded
politician with a Salafi tendency in matters of faith, who usually used the penname
S eyh Muhsin-i Fani el-Zahiri.
89
Hakk responded to Kadris critique, and the two men
exchanged a series of essays in the journal Sebil urresad.
90
Although Kadri did not use harsh language toward Hakk and called him cherished
and respected teacher (muazzez ve muhterem ustad), he did enter into a serious debate
with him. In his critique of Hakk, Kadri expresses his disappointment and sorrow
with Hakks attempts to revitalize kal am in accordance with contemporary thought.
Although he accepts the need for Muslim scholars to write new books and contribute
to Islamic intellectual tradition, he believes that new scholarship should be restricted to
commentaries and translations of the Qur

an written by a joint group of experts, without

any Western influence.
91
Kadri mentions that earlier he had also asked Seyh ulislam
Musa Kazm
92
to give up a similar attempt to reform kal am. Yet, in Kadris opinion,
Musa Kazms call for reformed kal am education was less harmful than Hakks Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, possibly because Musa Kazms reform remained only a vague proposal
whereas Hakks was more specific.
The new kal am, in Kadris opinion, would reintroduce useless theological disputes
that had been abandoned for centuries to the darkness of history. The invention of
kal am, as well as the translation of philosophical books from Greek into Arabic, was a
mistake of 9th-century Abbasid caliphs, whose methods of governing introduced many
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 91
negative trends into Islam, such as the translation of Greek philosophical works. Muslim
philosophers referred to Plato as the divine Plato (eflatun-i ilahi), Aristotle as the
first teacher (muallim-i evvel), and Galen as guide (imam)terms that ought to be
reserved for Islamic figures, in Kadris view. Even the term kal am (derived from
the Arabic word for speech) was patterned after the Greek word logos, which had
nothing to do with Islam. For the new kal am to introduce the modern European thought
of Locke, Malbranche, Kant, Descartes, and Comte, as well as probabilism, positivism,
materialism, dogmatism, and so on, was just as pointless, according to Kadri, as the
original kal ams introduction of ancient Greek thought. He urges Muslim scholars to
concentrate on legal and Qur

anic studies rather than theology or philosophy. What

society needs, especially the young generation, in Kadris opinion, is a contemporary
catechism (ilmihal), and not kal am. Kadri emphasizes that great Muslim scholars of
the pastAbu Hanifa, Shafii, Ahmad b. Hanbal, Ibn Taymiyya, and Ibn Kayyim al-
Jawziyyahad also criticized kal am.
As is obvious from his writings, Kadri was not only against Hakks revival attempts,
but was also an opponent of kal am per se, both in the past and the present. In an
earlier work he gave many examples of how debates over kal am involved disputes
that had caused confusion and disorder in Muslim society.
93
The best solution for
contemporary problems, Kadri thought, was to return to the original understanding of
Islamby removing the alien cultural influences on Muslimsocieties that had accrued over
centuries. Apart from his opposition to the revival of kal am, Kadri was also against any
sort of contact with Western philosophy. He strongly emphasized the materialistic aspects
of modern thought and the need for strengthening the spiritual values of Islam against
the possible challenges of Western ideas in the 19th century. According to Kadri, Islamic
faith does not need, in any aspect, to be strengthened with Western philosophical ideas.
However, although Kadri opposed the ideological bases of Western modernity as
most contemporaneous religious thinkers did, he did not reject necessary changes and
transformations in his society. He described two opposite attitudes toward modernization
in late Ottoman society, one a revolutionary change in modes of thought defended by the
Westernized elite, and the other a conservative traditionalismrepresented by the majority
of people. Kadri considered this situation a terrible dualism and social danger for the
future. He believed that Islam did not justify a static society that blindly imitated past
centuries; on the contrary, it included principles of change and renovation. If Qur

anic
principles were used properly, natural and desirable transitions would occur normally in
society. Therefore, he rejected both the adoption of Western thought as an ideology for
modernization of Ottoman society and traditional stasis, which was caused by historical
negligence of Islamic sources and the practices of Islam.
94
The main difference between Kadri and Hakk, therefore, seems to be the following:
Hakk wanted to use philosophy in general and modern philosophy in particular to
create a new language and method for contemporary kal am. He regarded this new kal am
as an alternative for Ottoman society in its modernization process to the adoption of
contemporary European thought, which included materialism and positivism. However,
Kadri was suspicious about this kind of integration of philosophy into Islamic disci-
plines. Philosophical ideas, even through kal am, according to Kadri, had degenerated
the purity and clarity of Islamic thought in the past and would cause even more con-
fusions and divisions among Muslims in the future. This is a view with which Hakk
92 M. Sait

Ozervarl
completely disagreed, regarding it as a fear without ground. Another late Ottoman
scholar, Darda ganzade Ahmed Nazif, also entered the discussion, supporting Hakk
against Kadri.
95

I SM A

I L HAKKIS RESERVATIONS ABOUT SOM E M ODERN

OTTOM AN ATTEM PTS TO REFORM ISLAM IC LAW
Next to his criticisms of modern European materialism and positivism,

Ismail Hakk
also had reservations about some modernist views of Ottoman thinkers, especially soci-
ological approaches to Islam, most famously represented in the work of Ziya G okalp and
members of his circle such as Halim Sabit and Mustafa S eref, who proposed their ideas
in their periodical Islam Mecmuas.
96
G okalps group was known for Turkish-nationalist
tendency in politics and for modernist interpretations in Islamic methodological thought
to establish principles for a secular legal system. Among many of his modernist efforts,
one of G okalps proposals was particularly disputed by Hakk. G okalp proposed that the
principles of Islamic law (us
.
ul al-fiqh) be reformed according to modern sociological
principles such as Emile Durkheims theories of the function of religion in generating
social solidarity. G okalps project, which he called the social interpretation of the prin-
ciples of Islamic law (ictimai usul-i fkh), gave a new emphasis to cultural traditions
(

urf/ orf ) as an important basis for Islamic law. The other part of Islamic law, which in-
cluded theological details of faith and worship, was described as the scriptual principles
of law (nassi usul-i fkh). Even the Qur

anic verses and Prophetic traditions that related

to the social aspects of life, in this approach, were seen as based on cultural traditions.
Moreover, Islamic legal and methodological terms were redefined in accordance with
modern conditions.
97
Although Hakk defends modernization in the field of fiqh, as in other Islamic disci-
plines, he insists that the classical bases of the field should remain constant. In a series of
articles criticizing G okalp, Hakk argues that cultural traditions ( orf ), although indeed
regarded as one of the sources, are actually secondary in importance to revelation and
prophetic traditions, and therefore cannot be an essential basis for reformed Islamic
law. The definition of orf by G okalp, according to Hakk, offers cultural sources a
much larger authority than they actually have, and therefore replaces the main source
of Islamic law with the less important one. If cultural phenomena were granted too
great a role above Islamic scripture, Hakk emphasizes, then some personal opinion
that is rooted in cultural thought would replace the sacred sources of religion. In that
case, Islamic law would not fully represent the will of God. Hakk also criticizes the
idea of distinctions between parts of Islamic law as they were integrated and connected
to each other. He concludes that application of classical methodological principles of
Islamic law in a modern way was sufficient to solve current social questions; therefore,
sociological interpretation of those principles to produce a new legal theory is needless.
He suggests that his opposition to the ictimai usul-i fkh attempt does not exclude or
reject the need for a new contemporary methodology of Islamic law, but it should not
be alien to traditional methodology and not be based on weak personal opinions.
98
In addition, Hakk objected to incorporation of rational thought into matters of pure
religious doctrine. Following the distinction between kal amand creedal issues (

aq a

id),
he did not allow any speculative method in the latter.
99
In

aq a

id texts, the subjects of

Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 93
creed and the principles of religion are presented without going into rational proofs and
scholastic debates on them. On issues of creed, rational argumentation and dialectical
thinking were inappropriate, he argued, because knowledge of religious creed came only
through revelation.
100
In this he departed from the classical literature on kal am, which
sometimes applied rational argumentation even to these creedal subjects. Therefore,
Hakks son and biographer, Celaleddin

Izmirli, describes him as a critically minded
Islamic scholar with a Salafi tendency with regard to religion and as a rationalist thinker
with regard to philosophical issues.
101
Moreover, Hakk criticized some other modern approaches of Islamic thought by
contemporaneous thinkers. For instance, on the question of the existence of God,

Ismail
Hakk defended classical philosophical methods, such as ontological, cosmological, and
teleological arguments, against modern criticisms. The major Western critic of these
arguments was the Enlightenment philosopher Kant, who as a theist thinker did not deny
the existence of God but found classical argumentation methods inadequate for proving
it. Kant based his theory of transcendental divine existence on moral principles rather
than metaphysical ones.
102
Indian Muslim thinker Muhammad Iqbal (18761938) also
shared this criticism and raised doubts about the capacity of reason to reach definitive
conclusions on metaphysical issues.
103
In Hakks approach, because there was an absolute unity between the existence and
the idea of God, the ontological argument had a strong foundation. He argued that the
deterministic relation of cause and effect was true not only in physical experience but
also in philosophical theory; therefore, nothing was wrong with using it in a metaphysical
context. He did not agree with modern critics of the teleological argument either. Kant
and other critics argued that teleology proved to be only a designer, and not a creator of
the universe.

Ismail Hakk preferred the ancient view that creation and its design could
not be divided from each other. Creation was possible only with a proper design, and
only its creator could design such a huge universe; therefore the designer of the world
was its creator. Even the theory of evolution, although used by materialists as proof
against the existence of God, displayed a careful design by God in the maintenance of
life.
104
That is why, according to Hakk, evolutionary thought existed in the works of
early Islamic philosophers such as ibn Miskawayh, Jalal al-Din al-Rumi, and

Ibrahim
Hakk Erzurumi.
105
CONCLUSION
The failure of old-style ulama to provide any real alternative to radical Ottoman elites
in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is one of the most important aspects of the rise
of new Muslim intellectuals like

Izmirli

Ismail Hakki. His intellectual circle could be
regarded as neo-ulama, or religious modernists who worked hard to understand the
above-mentioned changes in Ottoman society and to reach newsyntheses in their reinter-
pretation of Islamic thought. They also wanted to minimize the influence of materialistic
aspects of Western philosophy on Ottoman thought and culture. Contemporary science
or philosophy was valuable for this group; what was opposed was a possible conflict
between scientific/philosophical thought and religion, or more simply modernization
without religion and traditional culture. Modern criticisms of metaphysics, the athe-
ism of some radical Enlightenment thinkers, the popular materialism of 19th-century
94 M. Sait

Ozervarl
scientists, and sociopsychological approaches to religion were the main concerns of
Hakk and the emerging Ottoman religious intellectuals.
As a leading figure of this circle,

Ismail Hakk, although acknowledging the necessity
of modernization in religious disciplines, focused mainly and wrote extensively on
modern Islamic theology, or what he called new kal am, and addressed the intellectual
questions of his time. His intellectual activity manifested both continuity and change
in Ottoman Islamic thought and dialogue between two intellectual worlds. He used
new terminology in kal am and tried to use equivalents of modern philosophical terms
to respond to new cultural challenges and to present an alternative modernization of
thought to the scientific materialist or radical modernist one. However, he considered
his attempt within the continuous tradition of renovation in the history of Islamic thought,
comparable to al-Baqillani and al-Razis earlier efforts to reform kal am. Therefore, his
attempt, although it has not been highlighted in contemporary Islamic studies and has
remained almost unknown, nonetheless demonstrates that the central-Ottoman scholarly
environment in Istanbul was quite lively in terms of modern Islamic thought. Hakks
accommodation of his modern approach within traditional Ottoman Islamic culture also
helps us to reconsider the simplistic dichotomous approach when dealing with complex
and interactive relations between modern and traditional culture in Islamic, as well as
general, intellectual history.
Hakks new kal am sought to reconstruct traditional Islamic sources using modern
Western methodology, drawing selectively from philosophical and scientific thought.
He adopted certain Western theories of the age, such as evolution, and rejected others,
such as materialism. His criticism of German scientific materialism, as well as Comtean
positivism in a philosophical context, shows his interest in Western philosophy and
the intellectual debates that took place in his age. Within kal am, he defended certain
classical approaches, such as the link between revelation and rational argumentation,
and rejected others, such as the applicability of rational argumentation to creedal issues
like predestination. At the same time, Hakk combined a variety of Islamic intellectual
traditions, drawing on various schools of thought, including theologians, philosophers,
Salafis, and Sufis.

Ismail Hakk and his group of thinkers during the Hamidian and con-
stitutional eras seem to follow the steps of the Young Ottomans in presenting traditional
cultural heritage by means of modern methods; however, Hakks generation focused
more on Islamic and philosophical disciplines. The introduction of modern political
and intellectual ideas like constitutionalism, parliamentarism, and civilization by means
of traditional Islamic terminology by the Young Ottomans was an encouraging model
for modern religious thinkers to rethink many questions of Islamic disciplines and to
consider revitalizing their role in modernizing Ottoman society.
Yet, the debates in which Hakk participated during the final years of the Ottoman
Empire did not grow into a new school of thought immediately after the establishment
of the modern Turkish state. Hakk was not a philosopher, nor a founder of a theoretical
school, but rather a beginner of an effort in a relatively pluralistic environment in the
empires last decade. The political conditions of the early republican period did not allow
for intellectual diversity in academic circles; as such, because of the official adoption
of the radical path of modernization, the efforts of Hakk and his colleagues effectively
ceased. However, the radical approach of the new state caused a growing dissatisfaction
in this modernizing but historically religious society. Although approving necessary
changes since the 19th century, people were nonetheless dissatisfied with superimposed
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 95
elitist practices of modernization and demanded freedom to express their cultural and
religious preferences and views.
Therefore, Hakk and his circles opposition to materialist and positivist scientism,
although it did not stop official support for the radical modernization program in the
early republican era, did motivate in the long run a resistence in middle-class society
to exclusion of religion from educational and public spheres. The activities of social
movements and Sufi orders were another aspect of this resistance. As Hanio glu puts it,
the average Muslim has proven far more resistant to the dull mantras of science and
progress than the believers in an elitist transformation could ever have imagined.
106
Under public pressure, democratic steps were finally taken by the mid-20th century,
and religion reemerged as a social factor in Turkish society. The return of the prayer
call (ezan) in its original Arabic form was the most symbolic change in this regard.
Moreover, the resumption of Islamic studies and its teaching allowed religion to have a
place in academic and intellectual life.
This development was also connected to the fact that the experience of modernization
led to a reawakening of existing social and cultural traditions, including religion, in
both European and Muslim societies around the same time. Of course, there was a
remarkable decrease in the authority of religion in some spheres of modern life, but as
Waardenburg suggests, this development gave rise to the revitalization of values and
a new awareness of cultural tradition and identity.
107
Recent observations indicate that
modernization has brought existing religious traditions back into the limelight and under
discussion. A leading sociologist of religion, Peter Berger, argues that the proposition
that modernity necessarily leads to a decline of religion needs to be reconsidered.
Giving the examples of Catholic and Islamic movements, Berger emphasizes that the
modern and contemporary Islamic intellectual revival is by no means restricted to the
less modernized or backward sectors of society, as some still would like to think.
On the contrary, it is very strong in cities with a high degree of modernization, and
in several countries, it is particularly visible among people with Western-style higher
educationin Egypt and Turkey.
108
The current presence of a conservative religious, but at the same time reformist and
pro-Western, government in Turkey has its roots in efforts of scholars like

Izmirli

Ismail
Hakk and their early proposals for alternative conceptualizations of modernization.
Numerous articles and books by contemporary Turkish scholars, some of which are
referred to in this article, point to a growing interest in

Ismail Hakks thought and that
of others like him. Likewise, the recent rediscovery of the new kal am and contemporary
fiqh discussions in Turkish Islamic studies proves his importance for understanding
developments in the history of modern Ottoman and Turkish religious thought.
109
NOTES
Authors note: The earliest version of this article was a paper given at the University of California, Los
Angeles, during a conference on Religion and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire (April 2002). I thank the
participants of the conference, especially Geoffrey Symcox, Jim Gelvin, John O. Voll, David D. Commins,
Dina R. Khoury, and Kent Schull for their questions and comments. The scholarly environment of the Institute
of Advanced Study in Princeton during the year of 200203 allowed me to extend my research into an article,
where fellow members Charles Kurzman and Leslie Peirce contributed to my work greatly by reading the
text and offering valuable suggestions regarding its improvement. At the same time, M. S ukr u Hanio glu
of Princeton University generously answered my questions on a subject that is very close to his area of
96 M. Sait

Ozervarl
expertise. Through our correspondence and telephone conversations, I also benefited immensely from the vast
knowledge of Engin D. Akarl, who read the paper and led me to a deeper look into late Ottoman thought. I
am also indebted to the three anonymous referees of IJMES for their careful examination of the article and
their guidance about its structure and content. Without their feedback, and the coordinating editorial expertise
of Judith Tucker, the article would not enjoy its present scope. Lastly, I thank Janet Klein for offering her
time to proofread the final version with great attention. Needless to say, all shortcomings in this article belong
to me.
1
Jacques Waardenburg, Some Thoughts on Modernity and Modern Muslim Thinking about Islam, in
Islam and the Challenge of Modernity, ed. Sharifah Shifa al-Attas (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 1996), 317.
2
See Muhammad Qasim Zaman, The Ulama in Contemporary Islam: Custodians of Change (Princeton,
N.J./Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002), 3.
3
M. Hakan Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), viii.
4
R. J. Zwi Werblowski, Beyond Tradition and Modernity: Changing Religions in a Changing World
(London: Athlone Press, 1976), 1617.
5
Quoted from Edward Shils, by Werblowsky in Beyond Tradition and Modernity, 17. This phrase is
used almost exactly by Elmall Hamdi, another modern Ottoman religious scholar: What is needed is
modernization within permanence and permanence within modernization (beka icinde tecedd ud, tecedd ud
icinde beka). See Elmall Muhammed Hamdi, Dibace [Prologue], in Paul Janet and Gabriel Seailles, Tahlili
Tarih-i Felsefe: Metalib ve mezahib (Histoire de la philosophie: les problemes et les ecoles), trans. Elmall
Hamdi (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1341 [1923]), 3132.
6
For further analyses, see Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition (Cam-
bridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
7
Muhammed Rashid Rida, al-Tajdid wa

l-tajaddud wa

l-mujaddidun, al-Manar 31 (July 1931): 77077.

The English translation is quoted from Modernist Islam, 18401940: A Source Book, ed. Charles Kurzman
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 81.
8
See

Ilber Ortayl, Le tanzimat et le modele francais: Mimetisme ou adaptation, in his collection Studies
on Ottoman Transformation (Istanbul: ISIS, 1994), 99108. For an examination of Ottoman transformation
through the formation of new classes and the rise of elite groups, see Fatma M uge G ocek, Rise of the
Bourgeoisie, Demise of Empire: Ottoman Westernization and Social Change (New York/Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996).
9
On education reforms and the new ibtidai, r usdiye, and idadi schools during the Abd ulhamid II period,
see Bayram Kodaman, Abd ulhamid Devri E gitim Sistemi (Ankara: T urk Tarih Kurumu, 1988). For a broader
look at the changes in the 19th-century Ottoman Empire, see

Ilber Ortayl,

Imparatorlu gun En Uzun Y uzyl,
3rd ed. (Istanbul: Hil Yayn, 1995).
10
Similar m uhendishane, tbbiyye, and harbiye schools were established in the humanities after the tanz-
imat, following the French model of grandes ecoles, such as The School of Political Science (Mekteb-i
M ulkiye, 1859), Lyc ee de Galatasaray (Mekteb-i Sultani, 1868), The Law School (Mekteb-i Hukuk, 1880).
Even in Paris an Ottoman school, the Mekteb-i Osmani, was founded in 1857 to prepare students sent there by
the state for French education. For information on these early professional schools by some Western authors
who either taught there or saw them in their visit, see Giambattista Toderini, Letteratura Turchesca (Venezia:
Presso G. Storti, 1787); Charles MacFarlane, Turkey and Its Destiny: The Result of Journeys Made in 1847
and 1848 to Examine into the State of That Country (London: J. Murray, 1850).
11
For more analytical investigations into the changes of the post-tanzimat era schooling system, see Carter
Vaughn Findley, Ottoman Civil Officialdom: A Social History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1989), 13173; Ekmeleddin

Ihsano glu, The Genesis of Darulf unun: An Overview of Attempts to Establish
the First Ottoman University, Histoire economique et sociale de lEmpire ottoman et de la Turquie (1326
1960), ed. Daniel Panzac (Paris: Peeters, 1995), 82742; Mehmet O. Alkan, Modernization from Empire to
Republic and Education in the Process of Nationalism, in Ottoman Past and Todays Turkey, ed. Kemal H.
Karpat (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2000), 47132; Selcuk Aksin Somel, The Modernization of Public Education in the
Ottoman Empire, 18391908: Islamization, Autocracy, and Discipline (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001); Benjamin
C. Fortna, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late Ottoman Empire (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2002); and Jun Akiba, A New School for Qadis: Education of the Sharia Judges in the Late
Ottoman Empire, Turcica 35 (2003): 12563.
12
Bashoca

Ishak Efendi, the Chief-instructor of Engineering School, published by the mid-19th century
his four-volume encyclopedia entitled Mecmua-yi Ulum-i Riyaziye, which dealt with new approaches to
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 97
physical science. See

Ishak Efendi, Mecmua-yi Ulum-i Riyaziye, 4 vol. (Cairo: Bulak Matbaasi, 184145).
On

Ishak Efendi see Ekmeleddin

Ihsano glu, Bashoca Ishak Efendi: Pioneer of Modern Science in Turkey,
in Decision Making and Change in the Ottoman Empire, ed. Caeser E. Farah (Philadelphia, Pa.: Thomas
Jefferson University Press, 1993), 15768.
13
Mecmua-yi F unun (186367), a monthly periodical of M unif Pasas Cemiyet-i

Ilmiye-i Osmaniye
(Ottoman Scientific Society), and Mecmua-yi Ulum (187980) of Hoca Tahsin Efendis Cemiyet-i

Ilmiye
(Scientific Society) are among other similar publications to be named.
14
For the perception and admiration of modern European science by the late Ottomans with an emphasis
on a specific case, see Berrak Burcak, A Remedy for All Ills, Healing the Sick Man of Europe: A Case for
Ottoman Scientism (Seyyid Mustafa) (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005).
15
For an excellent and detailed study on Ottoman materialists, see M. S ukr u Hanio glu, Blueprints for
a Future Society: Late Ottoman Materialists on Science, Religion and Art, in Late Ottoman Society: The
Intellectual Legacy, ed. Elisabeth

Ozdalga (London: Routledge-Curzon: 2005), 29116. For further readings on
the history of materialism in OttomanTurkish thought, see Hilmi Ziya

Ulken, T urkiye

de C a gdas D us unce
Tarihi (Istanbul:

Ulken Yaynlar, 1992), 23356; Mehmet Akg un, Materyalizmin T urkiye

ye Girisi ve

Ilk
Etkileri (Ankara: K ult ur ve Turizm Bakanl g Yaynlar, 1988); Atilla Do gan, Osmanl Aydnlar ve Sosyal
Darvinizm (Istanbul: Istanbul Bilgi

Universitesi Yaynlar, 2006).
16
Abdullah Cevdet, S ime-i Muhabbet,

Ictihad 89 (1914): 197984. Cf. also Bernard Lewis, The Emer-
gence of Modern Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 231.
17
Hanio glu, Blueprints for a Future Society, 28. Other radical modernists, like Celal Nuri (

Ileri), who
combined naturalistic/deistic views with Islamic political goals, were also accused by contemporaries of
trying to introduce materialistic conceptions under the guise of a defense of Islam. See S erif Mardin, Religion
and Social Change in Modern Turkey (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1989), 142.
18

Ictihad was published by Abdullah Cevdet in Istanbul between 1904 and 1928 with some interruptions
and title changes.
19
Ludwig Buchner, Madde ve Kuvvet (Le mati` ere et la force, the French translation of Kraft und Stoff),
trans. Baha Tevfik and Ahmed Nebil (Istanbul: Dersaadet K ut uphanesi, 1911) and Ernst Heackel, Vahdet-i
Mevcud: Bir Tabiat Aliminin Dini (Monisme), trans. Baha Tevfik (Istanbul: Dersaadet K ut uphanesi, 1911).
20
For more details on the history and views of those so-called scientific materialists, see Frederick Gregory,
Scientific Materialism in Nineteenth Century Germany (Dordrecht/Boston: D. Riddel, 1977); L eo Freuler,
Le mat erialisme naturaliste ou vulgare et la Naturvissenschaftaliche Weltanschauung, in La Crise de la
philosophie au XIXe siecle (Paris: J. Vrin, 1997), 5586.
21
M. S ukr u Hanio glu, The Young Turks in Opposition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), 1213.
Admiration of modern science and overlooking of its Islamic past were not limited to the materialists. Even
a nonmaterialist such as S emseddin Sami Fraseri writes in one of his articles, For just as we cannot cure
even malaria with the medicine of Ibn Sina, so we can neither operate a railroad engine or steamship, nor
use the telegraph, with the chemistry of Jahiz and the wisdom of Ibn Sina. For this reason, if we wish to
become civilized, we must do so by borrowing science and technology from the contemporary civilization
of Europe, and leave the study of the works of Islamic scholars to the students of history and antiquity. See
S emseddin Sami Fraseri, Medeniyet-i cedidenin umem-i

Islamiyye

ye nakli, G unes 1 (1883): 17984. For

its English translation, see Kurzman (ed.), Modernist Islam, 150.
22
He wrote in his account, It was long since I had seen such a collection of downright materialism. A
young Turk, seemingly about twenty years of age, was sitting cross-legged in a corner of the room, reading
that manual of atheism, the Syst` eme de la Nature! Another of the students showed his proficiency in French
and philosophy, by quoting passages from Diderots Jaques le Fataliste . . . Caban ess Rapport de Physique
et du Morale de lHomme occupied a conspicuous place on the shelves. I no longer wondered it should be
commonly said that every student who came out of Galata Serai, after keeping the full term, came out always
a materialist . . . See MacFarlane, Turkey and Its Destiny, 2:27071.
23
Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science (New York: Harper &
Row, 1958), 19799.
24
Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy, 202. See also John O. Voll, Renewal and Reformation in the
Mid-Twentieth Century: Bediuzzaman Said Nursi and Religion in the 1950s, The Muslim World 89 (1999):
249.
25
Klczade

I. Hakk proposes this design project in a dream form, in which [t]he present medreses
will be abolished and a perfect medrese of Literary Sciences on the model of the College de France will
98 M. Sait

Ozervarl
be established instead of S uleymaniye Medresesi, and another exalted medrese on the model of the Ecole
Polytechnique will replace Fatih Medresesi. See Klczade

Ismail Hakk (

I. H.), Pek Uyank Bir Uyku,

Ictihad 55 (1913): 122628. The text of Klczade, which shows many parallels with the Republican reforms,
is translated into English by M. S ukr u Hanio glu as an appendix to his Garbclar: Their Attitudes toward
Religion and Their Impact on the Official Ideology of the Turkish Republic, Studia Islamica 86 (1997):
17658.
26
M. S ukr u Hanio glu, Preparation for Revolution: The Young Turks, 19021908 (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 2001), 305.
27
S erif Mardin, J on T urklerin Siyasi Fikirleri (Istanbul:

Iletisim Yaynlar, 1983), 1316.
28
For instance, members of the newly established translation offices, such as Telif ve Terc ume Dairesi,
began to translate certain classics of European modernism, such as the work of Descartes. See Rene Descartes,
Usul Hakknda Nutuk (Discourse de la m ethode), trans.

Ibrahim Edhem (Istanbul: Mahmud Bey Matbaasi,
1894); Abbe E. Barbe, Tarih-i Felsefe (Histoire de la philosophie), trans. Bohor

Israil (Istanbul: Matbaa-i
Amire, 1914); Alexis Bertrand, Mebadi-i Felsefe-i Ilmiyye ve Felsefe-i Ahlakiyye (Lexique de philosophie),
trans. Salih Zeki (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1915).
29
Henri Poincar e,

Ilim ve Faraziye: Felsefe-i

Ilmiyye (Science et hypothese), 2nd ed., trans. Salih Zeki
(Istanbul: Milli Matbaa, 1927); Emile Boutroux,

Ilim ve Din (Science et religion dans la philosophie contem-
poraine), trans. H useyin Cahid Yalcn (Istanbul: Aksam Matbaas, 1927); Henri Bergson, Suurun Bila Vasta
Mutalar Hakknda (Les donnees immediates de la conscience), trans. Halil Nimetullah

Ozt urk (Istanbul:
Devlet Matbaas, 1928). Mustafa S ekip (Tunc, 18861958), a professor of philosophy and psychology at
Dar ulf unun, was the main Ottoman Turkish disciple of Bergsonian philosophy and influenced many of his
students during this period. Among his many translations from Henri Bergson, see Yaratc Tekam ul

den
Hayatin Tekam ul u (Levolution creatrice) (Ankara: Maarif Vekaleti, 1934). For a short description of Turkish
Bergsonian thought, see Ziyaeddin Fahri Fndko glu, Turkiye

de Bergsonizm III, Cumhuriyet Gazetesi, 13

and 15 January 1941. On the thought and impact of Mustafa S ekip, see Hayrani Altntas, Mustafa Sekip Tunc
(Ankara: K ult ur Bakanl g Yaynlar, 1989).
30
The advent of new religious intellectuals in the 19th century is often identified with Ahmed Cevdet Pasa
(182295), who is considered to be the earliest type of modern-oriented traditional scholar in the late Ottoman
Empire. By standardizing the language of religious thought, using footnotes in his works, and making reference
to Western civilization, he was one of the leading figures of modernization in late Ottoman religious thought.
He himself spoke of a new era (c gr) that began with him in Ottoman scholarship. Ahmed Cevdet Pasa,
Tezakir, ed. Cavid Baysun (Ankara: T urk Tarih Kurumu, 1986), 4:72. Perhaps the most important symbolic
exercise of the new era regarding religious thought was the modern project of codifying Islamic civil law
(mecelle) in 186976.
31
See, for example, Charles Bourdel,

Ilimve Felsefe (La science et la philosophie), trans. Mehmed Ali Ayni
(Istanbul: Matbaa-i Amire, 1913); George Fonsegrive, Mebadi-yi Felsefeden

Ilmu

n-nefs, trans. Babanzade

Ahmed Naim (Istanbul: Maarif-i Umumiye Nezareti, 1913); Janet and Seailles, Tahlili Tarih-i Felsefe. On the
history of resistance to materialist philosophy by late Ottoman religious scholars, see S uleyman Hayri Bolay,
T urkiye

de Ruhcu ve Maddeci G or us un M ucadelesi, 3rd ed. (Istanbul: Akca g Yaynlar, n.d.) and Neset Toku,
T urkiye

de Anti-Materyalist Felsefe (Spirit ualizm):

Ilk Temsilciler (Istanbul: Beyan Yaynlar, 1996).
32
Halil

Inalck, From Empire to Republic: Essays on Ottoman and Turkish Social History (Istanbul: Isis
Press, 1995), 149.
33
S erif Mardin, The Genesis of the Young Ottoman Thought (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1962), 404; and Religion and Social Change in Modern Turkey, 122.
34
After a very short period of good relations with the CUP, religious thinkers began to declare their
opposition and wrote critical articles in their journals, like Beyan ulhak and Srat- M ustakim. This was
followed by CUP policies to diminish the role of religion in many aspects of social life (Hanio glu, Preparation
for Revolution, 3068).
35
Cf. for example Elmall Muhammed Hamdi, Dibace, in Janet and S eailles, Tahlili Tarih-i Felsefe,
3435.
36
Cf. John O. Voll, The Mistaken Identification of The West with Modernity, American Journal
of Islamic Social Sciences 13 (1996): 112. Jacques Waardenburg points out that, although modernity has
often been linked to Western liberalism and democracy, there is no reason that modernity should refer
only to the West. In fact, modernity can occur in different societies and cultures. As it is observed, many
societies reformulate their culturalreligious traditions to function within new conditions, and each has its
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 99
own characteristics (Waardenburg, Some Thoughts on Modernity and Modern MuslimThinking about Islam,
31819).
37
On reform attempts to revitalize madrasa programs, see Mustafa Ergun, II. Mesrutiyet D oneminde
Medreselerin Durumu ve Islah Calsmalar, Dil ve Tarih-Co grafya Fak ultesi Dergisi 30 (197982): 5989;
Xavier Jacob, Lenseignement religieux en Turquie de la fin de lEmpire Ottoman a nos jours, in Madrasa: La
transmission du savoir dans le monde musulman, ed. Nicole Grandin and Marc Gaborieau (Paris: Arguments,
1979), and Yasar Sarkaya, Medreseler ve Modernlesme (Istanbul:

Iz Yaynclk, 1997).
38
For example, the renowned 11th-century scholar al-Ghazzali titled one of his last books Ihya

ulum
al-din (The Revival of Islamic Disciplines), which was written when he returned from a period of seclusion
because of his dissatisfaction with the educational system and intellectual establishment of his age. Similar
attempts took place in late medieval and premodern times with a variety of objectives.
39
For example, comparing the views of Mehmed S emseddin (G unaltay) and Seyh ulislam Mustafa Sabri
could be a good case to know about differences in their approaches. For an anthology of selective writings of
various members of this group, see

Ismail Kara, T urkiye

de

Islamclk D us uncesi III (Istanbul: Risale, 1986,
1987).
40

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, Asm: Raif Bey hafidi Ahmed Asm Bey,

Islam-T urk Ansiklopedisi Mecmuas
(Istanbul: Asar-i

Ilmiye K ut uphanesi Nesriyati, 1941), 1:583.
41
See Hamit Er, Istanbul Dar ulf ununu

Ilahiyat Fak ultesi Mecmuas Hoca ve Talebeleri (Istanbul:

Islam
Medeniyeti Vakf, 1996), 16366.
42
For Dar ulhil afe and its activities, see Hamit Er, Medreseden Mektebe Gecis S urecinde Dar ulhilafe
Medreseleri (Istanbul: Ra gbet Yaynlar, 2003); and for Dar ulhikme, its foundation and members, see Sadk
Albayrak, Son Devrin Din Akademisi: Dar u

l-Hikmeti

l-

Islamiye (Istanbul:

Iz Yaynclk, 1998).
43
On the life and works of

Ismail Hakk, see a short biography by his son, Celaleddin

Izmirli,

Izmirli

Ismail
Hakk: Hayat Eserleri, Dini ve Felsefi

Ilimlerdeki Mevkii, J ubilesi, Vefat (Istanbul: Hilmi Kitabevi, 1946);
Sabri Hizmetli, La vie et les oeuvres dIzmirli Ismail Haqqi (Masters thesis, Universite de Paris, Sorbonne,
1976); Bayram Ali C etinkaya,

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk: Hayat, Eserleri, G or usleri (Istanbul:

Insan Yaynlar,
2000).
44

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, Mustasvife S ozleri mi, Tasavvufun Zaferleri mi? Hakkn Zaferleri (Istanbul: Evkaf-

Islamiye Matbaas, 1922), 6.

45
Ibid., 78.
46
Robert Caspar, Le renouveau de Mo

tasilisme, Melanges Institut Dominicain dEtudes Orientales du

Caire (MIDEO) 4 (1957): 141202; Detlev Khalid, Some Aspects of Neo-Mu

tazilism, Islamic Studies

8 (1969): 31947; Richard C. Martin, Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mu

tazilism from Medieval School

to Modern Symbol (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1997); Thomas Hildebrandt, Waren Gamal ad-Din
al-Afgani und Muhammad

Abduh Neo-Mu

taziliten?, Die Welt des Islams 42 (2002): 20762.

47

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, Asm: Raif Bey hafidi Ahmed Asm Bey,

Islam-T urk Ansiklopedisi (1941), 1:
58283. The manuscript of this authorization is kept among

Ismail Hakks collection in S uleymaniye Library,

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, MS. no. 4213.
48
On the founder and his thought, see Elmer H. Douglas, The Mystical Teachings of al-Shadhili (Albany,
N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1993).
49

Ismail Hakk, Ahlak ve Tasavvuf Kitablarndaki Ehadis Hakknda (S uleymaniye Library, Yazma Ba gslar,
no. 537) and Mustasvife S ozleri mi, Tasavvufun Zaferleri mi? The first book has been recently transliterated,
along with S eyh Saffets response, by

Ibrahim Hatibo glu, Ahlak ve Tassavuf Kitaplarindaki Hadislerin Shhati
(Istanbul: Dar ulhadis, 2001).
50
In an unpublished work, Hakk translated a short chapter on ethics fromEmile Boiracs Cours el ementaire
de la philosophie (see

Ismail Hakk, M ulahhas

Ilm-i Ahlak, MS, S uleymaniye Library,

Izmirli, no. 3762), but
apart from that, he appears not to have any separate book on ethical philosophy.
51
See

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk,

Islam M utefekkirleri ile Garp M utefekkirleri Arasnda Mukayese (Ankara:
Diyanet

Isleri Baskanl g Yaynlar, 1952). Because of his concentration on the comparative method between
Islamic and Western thoughts, Hilmi Ziya

Ulken, a historian of Turkish philosophy, regards him as a bridge
between East and West as well as between modernity and tradition. See

Ulken, T urkiye

de C a gdas D us unce
Tarihi, 28184.
52
See the bibliography of

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam (Istanbul: Evkaf-

Islamiyye Matbaas,
1920).
53
Hakk,

Islam M utefekkirleri ile Garp M utefekkirleri Arasnda Mukayese, 1.
100 M. Sait

Ozervarl
54
Abd ullatif Harputi, Tarih-i

Ilm-i Kelam (Istanbul: Necm-i

Istikbal Matbaas, 1913), 111. In his main
doctrinal kal am book, Tanqih al-kalam (Istanbul: Necm-i

Istikbal Matbaas, 1912), Harputi set forth a new
program for kal am and asked young scholars to develop it. Tanqih is also transliterated into modern Turkish
by Fikret Karaman as Kelami Perspektiften

Inanc Esaslar (Elazi g, Turkey: TDV Elazi g S ubesi Yayinlari,
2001).
55
Abd ullatif Harputi,

Ilm-i Hey

et ile Kutub-i Mukaddese Arasndaki Zahiri Hilafin Tevcih ve Tevfiki

Hakknda Risale (Istanbul: Necm-i

Istikbal Matbaas, 1911), 43956.
56
S eyh ulislam Musa Kazm, K ut ub-i Kelamiyyenin

Ihtiyacat- Asriyyeye G ore Islah, K ulliyat: Dini

Ictimai Makaleler (Istanbul: Evkaf-

Islamiyye Matbaas, 1918), 29293. The article is translated into English
by Yektan T urkylmaz in Kurzman (ed.), Modernist Islam, 17880. On Musa Kazms biography, part of
his views, and legal opinions, see recent studies of Kevin Reinhart, Musa Kazm: From Ilm to Polemics,
Archivum Ottomanicum 19 (2001): 281306; and Ferhat Koca, Seyh ulislam Musa Kazm Efendi

nin Hayat ve
Fetvalar (Istanbul: Ra gbet, 2002). On his Sufi background and his involvement in Masonic activities in late
Ottoman politics, see Thierry Zarcone, Soufism et franc-maconnerie a la fin de lempire ottoman: lexample
du seyhulislam Musa Kazim Efendi (18501920), Anatolia Moderna/Yeni Anadolu 1 (1991): 20120.
57
For an overview and further details on late Ottoman kal am, as compared with similar movements in
Egypt and India at the same time, see M. Sait

Ozervarl, Kelamda Yenilik Arayslar (Istanbul:

ISAM, 1998),
4567. For another revival movement combining Salafi principles and Sufi mysticism with modern rational
thought in Ottoman Syria in the 19th century, promoted especially by

Abd al-Qadir al-Jaza

iri and Jamal

al-Din al-Qasimi, see David Dean Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman
Syria (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990) and Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism Salafiya,
and Arabism in Late Ottoman Damascus (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001).
58
On the name and nature of kal am, see Richard Frank, The Science of Kalam, Arabic Science and
Philosophy 2 (1992), 737.
59

Abd al-Rahman b. Muhammad Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima (Beirut: Dar Ihya

al-Turath al-

Arabi,
n.d.), 466.
60
Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali, al-Mustasfa min

ilm al-usul (Cairo: Dar Sadir, 1904), 10.
61

Adud al-Din al-Iji, Kitab al-mawaqif, ed.

Abd al-Rahman

Umayra (Beirut: Dar al-Jil, 1997), 1:4345.
62
Cf. A. I. Sabra, Science and Philosophy in Medieval Islamic Theology: The Evidence of the Fourteenth
Century, Zeitschrift fur Geschichte der Arabisch-Islamischen Wissenschaften 9 (1994): 1523.
63
Mustafa Sait Yazco glu, Le Kalam et son r ole dans la soci et e turco-ottomane aux XVe et XVIe si` ecles
(Ankara: Editions Minist` ere de la culture, 1990).
64
Task oprizade Ahmed Efendi, Mevzu

at al-ulum, translated into Turkish by his son, Task oprizade Mehmed

Efendi (Istanbul:

Ikdam Matbaasi, 1895), 1:597, 615.
65

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, Muhassal al-kalam wa-l-hikma (Istanbul: Evkaf-

Islamiyye Matbaas, 1917),
1112.
66

Ismail Hakk planned his work in three chapters, but he was unable to complete the third one on prophecy
and eschatology.
67
Hakk, Muhassal al-kalam wa-l-hikma, 1314; and his Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 1:1819.
68
Hakk, Muhassal al-kalam wa-l-hikma, 16; see also his Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam Hakknda-II, Sebil urresad
22: 55152 (1923), 40. Hilmi Ziya

Ulken emphasizes that Hakki succeeded in his Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam to present
medieval theological questions froma modern philosophical point of view(

Ulken, T urkiye

de C a gdas D us unce
Tarihi, 283).
69
Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 59.
70
See Hakk, Al-Jawab al-sadid fi bayan din al-tawhid (Ankara: Ali S ukr uMatbaas, 1920), 3745.
71
See his Narn Ebediyyet ve Devam Hakknda Tedkikat (Istanbul: Dar ulf unun Matbaas, 1923).
72
Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 1:1112.
73
Hakk, Muhassal al-kalam wa-l-hikma, 1214.
74
Hakk,

Islam

da Felsefe: Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, Sebil urresad 14 (1914), 43.
75
Hakk, Peyami Safa

nin

Islam Feylesoflarna Haksz H ucumu,

Islam-T urk Ansiklopedisi Mecmuasi,
2:45, 23.
76
See

Ismail Ferid,

Ibtal-i mezheb-i maddiyun (Izmir: Ahmed Celadet ve S urekas Matbaas, 1894); Filibeli
S ehbenderzade Ahmed Hilmi, Allah

Inkar M umk un m ud ur? Yahud Huzur-i Fende Meselik-i K uf ur (Istanbul:
Hikmet Matbaa-i

Islamiyesi, 1909), and his Huzur-i Akl u Fende Maddiyun Meslek-i Dalaleti (Istanbul:
Dar u

l-Hilafe, 1913); Harputizade Hac Mustafa, Red ve

Isbat (Istanbul: Hikmet Matbaa-i

Islamiyesi, 1911).
Alternative Approaches to Modernization in the Late Ottoman 101
77
Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 2:7578.
78
Ibid., 2:78.
79
Ibid., 2:5960.
80
Ibid., 2:64.
81
Ibid., 2:6375.
82
Ibid., 2:78. For similar descriptions, see Hilmi, Huzur-i Akl u Fende Maddiyun Meslek-i Dalaleti, 68.
According to Hilmi, the more developed English society did not let materialist views spread in their nation as
they did in continental Europe.
83
Hilmi also accuses the materialists of not only excluding religion, but also leaving no room for doing
philosophy (ibid., 109). However, he says that, although they appear to reject metaphysical philosophy, they
could not escape involving themselves in the same issues, as they claim the eternity of matter, which could not
be proven by physical science (ibid., 7274). A larger refutation against the materialists was later produced
by

Ismail Fenni (Ertu grul), Maddiyun Mezhebinin

Izmihlali (n.p.; Orhaniye Matbaas, 1928).
84
Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 2:73.
85
Hakk, Muhassal al-kalam wa-l-hikmah, 16; and Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 1:19.

Ismail Hakk also considered
it inappropriate to interpret Qur

anic verses as scientific statements about the physical universe, because the
Qur

an was revealed not to give scientific information, but to strengthen the faith of believers (Yeni

Ilm-i
Kelam, 1:1516).
86
Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 1:28384, 2:4958, and 6375.
87
Ibid., 2:7983. For history and personalities of Ottoman/Turkish positivism, see Murtaza Korlaelci,
Pozitivizmin T urkiye

ye Girisi ve ilk Etkileri (Istanbul:

Insan Yaynlar, 1986).
88
See Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 5859.
89
On H useyin Kazm Kadri, see his Mesrutiyetten Cumhuriyete Hatralarm, ed.

Ismail Kara (

Istanbul:
Dergah, 2000) and S evki (ed.), H useyin Kazm Bey (Istanbul: Matbaa-i Eb uzziya, 1935).
90
S eyh Muhsin-i Fani ez-Zahiri, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam Yazlmal m Yazlmamal m?: Sebil urresad
Ceride-i

Ilmiyyesine, Sebil urresad, 21: 53233 (1923), 9293;

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, Sebil urresad Ceride-
i

Ilmiyesine: Seyh Muhsin-i Fani ez-Zahiri Hazretlerine, Sebil urresad, 21: 54243 (1923), 174; Zahiri,
Sebil urresad Ceride-i

Ilmiyyesine, Sebil urresad, 21: 546 (1923), 20710;

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i
Kelam Hakknda Sebil urresad Ceride-i

Ilmiyesine, Sebil urresad, 22: 54950 (1923), 3032; and also his
Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam Hakknda Sebil urresad Ceride-i

Ilmiyyesine-2, Sebil urresad, 22: 55152 (1923), 3840.
91
S eyh Muhsin-i Fani,

Istikbale Do gru (Istanbul: Ahmed

Ihsan ve S urekas, 1913), 67, 1012.
92
One of the influential and controversial grand mufti (seyh ulislam) of the late period, for bibliographic
sources on him, see note 56.
93
S eyh Muhsin-i Fani ez-Zahiri, Yirminci Asrda

Islamiyet (Istanbul: Evkaf- Islamiyye Matbaas, 1923),
618.
94
S eyh Muhsin-i Fani ez-Zahiri, Yirminci Asrda

Islamiyet, 5262.
95
See Darda ganzade Ahmed Nazif, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam: L uzumu Var m Yok mu? Sebil urresad, 22: 561
62 (1923), 11719. Kadri, Hakk, and Darda ganzades articles are transliterated by Adnan B ulent Balo glu in

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk (Sempozyum: 2425 Kasm1995), ed. Mehmet S eker and Adnan B ulent Balo glu (Ankara:
T urkiye Diyanet Vakf, 1996), 265312.
96
On Ziya G okalps views on religion and Islam, see Uriel Heyd, Foundations of Turkish Nationalism:
The Life and Teachings of Ziya Gokalp (London: Luzac and Company, 1950), 82103, and Taha Parla, The
Social and Political Thought of Ziya Gokalp 18761924 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), 3841.
97
See Ziya G okalps articles, Fkh ve

Ictimaiyyat,

Ictimai Usul-i Fkh, Husn ve Kubh,

Orf Nedir?
and Kymet H uk umleri ve

Orf in the first and second volumes of

Islam Mecmuas (191213). G okalps
views were supported in similar articles written by Halim Sabit and Mustafa S eref in later issues of the same
journal. G okalps attempt in fiqh was applied in the same journal to kal am by Mehmed S erafeddin (Yaltkaya).
See M. Sait

Ozervarl, Son D onem Osmanl D us uncesinde Arayslar: Mehmed S erafeddin

in

Ictimai

Ilm-i
Kelam

,

Islam Arastrmalar Dergisi 3 (1999): 15770.
98

Ismail Hakks series of articles on this discussion were titled as Fkh and Fetava,

Orf un Nazar-
i S er

deki Mevkii, and finally

Ictimai Usul-i Fkha

Ihtiyac Var m? (in Sebil urresad, 12: 29298) are
transliterated and reproduced by Recep S ent urk in Modernlesme ve Toplumbilim (Istanbul:

Iz Yaynclk,
1996), 339429. For a comprehensive study of this discussion between the G okalp school and

Ismail Hakk,
see Sami Erdem, Tanzimat Sonras Osmanl Fkh Usul u Kavramlar ve Modern Yaklasmlar (PhD diss.,
Marmara University, 2003), 116 ff. The discussion was poorly summarized earlier by Abd ulkadir S ener,
102 M. Sait

Ozervarl

Ictimai Usul-i Fkh Tartsmalar, Ankara

Universitesi

Ilahiyat Fak ultesi

Islam

Ilimleri Enstit us u Dergisi 5
(1982): 23147.
99
For instance, the creedal treatises by al-Tahawi or Omar al-Nasafi are considered within the

aq a

id
genre of Islamic theological literature and are not regarded as philosophical kal am texts.
100
Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam Hakknda, 3031.
101
See Celaleddin

Izmirli,

Izmirli

Ismail Hakk, 2729.
102
See Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kempt Smith (London: Macmillan,
1990), 50014 and 51824.
103
Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, ed. M. Saeed Sheikh (Lahore:
Institute of Islamic Culture, 1989), 2325.
104
Hakk, Yeni

Ilm-i Kelam, 1:229, 2:6, 4958.
105
Hakk,

Islam M utefekkirleri ile Garp M utefekkirleri Arasnda Mukayese, 3641.
106
Hanio glu, Blueprints for a Future Society, 88.
107
Waardenburg, Some Thoughts on Modernity and Modern Muslim Thinking about Islam, 318.
108
Peter L. Berger, The Desecularization of the World: A Global Overview, in The Desecularization of
the World: Resurgent, Religion and World Politics, ed. Peter L. Berger (Washington, D.C.: The Ethics and
Public Policy Center, 1999), 38.
109
For an analytical examination, from a historians point of view, of the problems of revitalization efforts
in Islamic disciplines, see Ahmet Yasar Ocak,

Islami Bilimler ve Modernlesme Problemi, D us unen Siyaset,

19 (2005), 1331.